He Calls Me Daddy
by bobafettish1987
Summary: Short vignettes about Boba growing up. I write them erratically and without plot (though I intended to have plot when I started) and skip around in time a bit, but they're kind of cute, I'm told. ;)
1. Daddy?

He Calls Me "Daddy"  
  
"Daddy?" Boba sat up in bed, clutching his stuffed ewok. He peered through the darkness to Jango's bed, and, finding his father had not yet roused himself, tried again. "Daddy?"  
  
Jango made discontented noises as he rolled over to glare at Boba. "What?"  
  
"I can't sleep." Boba looked so small and scared, Jango sighed aloud, then sat up and pushed off his blankets.  
  
"I'll get you some warm bantha milk." Jango waited for his threat to sink in.  
  
"No!" Boba let his ewok fall onto his lap in alarm. "Not bantha milk, please, Dad?"  
  
"No, no, no. Bantha milk is just what a little insomniac Fett needs." Jango walked out of the room with a fond smile on his face, hearing Boba's feeble protests.  
  
The Fett apartment in Tipoca City on Kamino was not large. Jango was paid well for his job as a DNA donor to the cloners, but he and Boba lived sparingly. The kitchen was small, with a table, two chairs, a sink, a fridge, and a microwave. Occasionally Zam Wessel, a family friend and business partner of Jango's, would bring over some of her mother's cinnamon rolls, which Boba particularely liked. It had been Zam who had suggested the bantha milk and stuffed ewok; the changeling asassin had a soft spot for the four-year-old.  
  
When Jango came back with the warm milk, Boba was alseep. Grumpily, Jango returned it to the kitchen.  
  
Later, when Jango had settled back into bed, he heard a small voice call through the dark again. With a groan, he eyed Boba over his shoulder.  
  
Boba was sitting up in bed again, but this time he looked purely pretrified. "Daddy! Daddy, there's something under my bed! It's going to get Ooku!" A small finger was pointed at the ewok, which had fallen to the floor.  
  
"Boba--" Jango began, swinging his feet onto the cold floor and scooping up the stuffed toy.  
  
"Daddy! Watch out!" Boba's hands twisted in his covers, his big brown eyes wide with fear.  
  
Jango sat down on his son's bed and gathered the little boy into his arms. He handed Boba the ewok, and the four-year-old snuggled up against his father. Jango looked down at the top of Boba's little head, and grinned sheepishly. He knew he was a sucker when it came to Boba. Maybe it was because the little boy was so much like himself at that age, after all, Boba was Jango's clone, but whatever it was, Jango couldn't resist that little guy's big brown eyes.  
  
He tousled Boba's hair, then gave him a quick hug. Jango was still awkward giving hugs, but it became easier and easier each time. He hoped this didn't mean he was going soft--that would never do!  
  
"Dad?" Boba interrupted Jango's thoughts to stare up at his father, "Why aren't you scared of the dark?"  
  
Jango considered telling Boba that it was because there was nothing to be afraid of, but though better of it. In the kind of world Jango and Boba lived in, in every shadow there was a blaster aimed at you heart. Their apartment was the only place in which Jango felt safe. "Because I'm just as dangerous as the bad things, Boba. I know that nothing can hurt me, because I have my blaster with me."  
  
Boba grinned, wrapping his small arms around his father. "You must be the biggest and bravest man in the universe!"  
  
"That's right," Jango agreed, pretending to be serious, "and you must be the sleepiest and most annoying boy in the universe!" He attacked Boba with a torrent of tickling. When the child's giggles subsided, he scooped up the annoying little boy and ewok, and tucked them into Boba's bed.  
  
As Jango lay on his pallet, across the small room from Boba, he could not sleep. He gazed at the little boy, his clone, his son. Boba's dark curls spilled across his pillow, his brown eyes hidden in sleep. He looked like an angel, Jango admitted. For a moment, he almost regretted what he would train Boba to become. 


	2. A Bounty Hunter's Beginning

"Here he is, Jango."  Taun We's long arms extended a small bundle to Jango Fett.  "He is a month old, and his name is Boba, as you said."

The bounty hunter accepted the child with an unpracticed embrace.  He roughly held the infant against his chest.  "What does he eat?"

"Your kitchen will be stocked with milk when your weekly food parcel arrives.  As you requested, a crib was put in your sleeping quarters.  Keep us posted on your supply of diapers."

Diapers! Jango groaned to himself, this kid is going to be a real pain!

He strode down the hallway, trying with little success to cushion his heavy footsteps.  Each step jarred the infant, and Boba threatened to wake.  Jango glowered down at the baby.  What demon had possessed his mind that had made him ask for a clone?

His gaze softened—a little—as Boba turned his head to face the other direction.  A miniscule sigh of sheer comfort escaped his tiny lips.   A flicker of regret danced across his features: _Is that what I was; what I used to be?  Who was it that gazed down on me when I was so small?_  Jango had no memory of his mother.   The earliest thing he could recall was the electric whip burning scars across his back.  The marks still remained on his body, and on his mind.

_This little Boba will never feel a whip on his back_, vowed Jango, _No, he will be the one to wield the whip._

Five months later...

"Jango Fett?"  Zam Wessel stood inside Jango's door, a look of utter disbelief on her face, which was, at the moment, human.

The bounty hunter's head snapped up.  "Zam.  What are you doing here?"

"I saw your light on, and was wondering what you were up to."

Jango indicated the bundle in his arms with a jerk of his chin.  "Boba," he explained curtly.

Zam grinned.  "Of course.  Jango Fett, feared bounty hunter, is up late to feed his baby."

"Something like that." Jango focused his gaze on Boba again.

Zam strode across the room, allowing the door to hiss shut behind her.  She scooped up a purple teddy bear and thrust it at Jango with an air of repressed laughter.  "The feared bounty hunter's plaything?"

"Zam..."  Jango didn't feel much like arguing his case.  He was tired, having been up for most of the night with his demanding clone.

Immediately, the changeling knew she was treading a fine line between irritation and fury.  Jango was not known for his even temperament.  Letting the stuffed animal fall, she perched herself upon the kitchen counter, which separated the kitchen from the living room.  Zam regarded Jango from her vantage point, and smiled to herself.  She would not often have the chance to see Jango Fett in a rocking chair.

Jango ignored his business partner and turned his attention back to Boba.  While he had been talking to Zam, the bottle had slipped out of the baby's mouth, and Boba was frantically trying, in his blind and sleepy way, to recover it.  Jango quickly corrected the error, then shot a look, as menacing as he could muster, at Zam.  "What's up?"

"Just wondering what you were up to."  Zam cocked her head innocently and raised her eyebrows.  He knew why she was here.

Jango caught the look and returned one of irritation.  "Zam, I'm a little **_busy_** right now."

"Of course," Zam jumped off of the counter, withdrawing a datapad from her pocket and gazing at it absently.  "I'm sure Eiben Stellar won't mind our meeting being postponed."

Jango glared at her, then sighed.  In his arms, the infant Boba sighed too, but it was much more innocent and carefree.  Jango Fett detested innocence and carefreeness.  He made a mental note not to let Boba grow up that way.  Fett turned his attention back to Zam.  "Just wait here a minute, okay?"

Zam smiled smugly and dropped onto the couch to wait for him, while Jango whisked Boba away to his crib.  She knew that Jango wasn't as upset with her as he seemed; he never was.  Despite what he liked to tell people, they were not just business partners.  Before Boba's birth, Zam had spent a lot of time at Jango's apartment, but, she defended quickly, never any nights.  Their friendship had developed from partnership to romance in the months that they had been working for Eiben Stellar, a Dekenbrian slaver.  Though Fett was not the most romantic man in the galaxy, Zam admitted, she'd always been a tomboy herself.

Jango trod back into the living room, disrupting her thoughts.  Fishing his own datapad out of his pocket, he plopped down on the couch next to her and rubbed a weary hand over his face.  "What's Stellar say?"

Zam raised her eyebrows again, and plucked the burp towel off of Jango's shoulder.  "Nothing much...just wanted an excuse to get that kid off your hands."

Jango stiffened, and glanced towards Boba's bedroom.  "That kid is _my_ kid."  His voice had a warning edge to it.

The changeling flashed her trademark smug grin.  She folded and refolded the towel on her lap as she said, "I know, I know.  I was just kidding.  Calm down a bit, okay?  I just wanted to talk to you for a while, 'Mom', without Boba in the picture, you know?"

Jango seemed unconvinced.

"Hey, I love the kid just as much as you do.  You know that."  Zam's voice left it's usually sarcastic tone.  "He's my little buddy."

"Yeah," said Jango, smiling lopsidedly.  "I need to loosen up a bit."

"D'you want me to take care of Squirt for a while?  Then you can get more sleep, and get your work for Stellar done; he's not a patient man, you know.  My mom would really like to see Boba, too.  How about it?"

Jango considered it silently for a while, then shrugged.  "Sure; why not?  But just for a week or so..."

Zam put her hand on his reassuringly.  "Of course."  She stood.  "Does he have a bag of stuff he'll need?"

With a  nod, Jango rose.  "I'll go get it."

The changeling followed the bounty hunter into Boba's room, where she gathered up the baby things while Jango prepared his son to leave.  Five minutes later, Boba was settled into his carrying basket, and Zam was once again standing in Jango's doorway.

Zam paused, knowing she should say something.  She set Boba's basket down and gave Jango a quick hug.  Glancing over Fett's shoulder, she saw their reflection on the shiny durasteel wall: Jango, Zam, and baby Boba.  _What a cute family we make_, she mused inwardly, then banished the thought.  She and Jango could never be a family.  Taking care of Boba would be closest she'd ever get to having a child of her own.

Jango deposited a kiss on top of her head, then handed Zam her helmet.  "Bye," he said quietly, "and thanks."

"No problem."  Zam picked up the basket and baby bag, and started to head down the hallway towards her landing bay.  Then she heard Fett's voice, now its commanding bounty hunter tone, the voice that froze the blood of his victims.

"Zam, take good care of that kid."

Zam nodded, then resumed her walk down the hall.  She knew if Boba was ever so slightly bruised or scratched, Jango would not hesitate to inflict much worse on her.  _Yep, _she thought, glancing down at Boba Fett, _He finally cares about something other than credits.  You might have ruined the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, kid, but if that was any example, you haven't_.  She smiled.


	3. Training

Training

Boba fired rapidly at the targets in his viewscreen, sending two streams of plasma cutting through the rain.  He squinted and fired again, conscious of Jango's watchful eyes behind him.  Boba's clothes were wet and plastered to his body, and the boy shivered a little.  The slight motion affected his aim, and plasma shot away into the rain beyond Jango's landing platform.  Boba stopped firing and bowed his head as his father's hand came down firmly on his shoulder.  "Again," was all Jango said.

"Dad, can't we do this later?" Boba asked, pulling the trainer viewscreen off of his head.  "I'm cold, I'm tired—"  Jango cut off Boba's complaints with a brisk shake of his head.

"No.  You wouldn't be stop during a hunt just because it got cold and rainy, would you?"

Boba shook his head sullenly and donned the viewscreen again.  Before long, Jango reactivated the screen, and Boba found himself plunged into another scenario.  This time he was on a landing pad on Coruscant, with barely enough time to scope out his surroundings before the first shot chanced his way.  Calling on his years of training, the boy dropped into a roll that brought him up a few yards to the left, and he came up firing.

Somewhere beyond the Coruscant scenario, he was vaguely aware of Jango's coaching: "Don't waste fire; be precise; don't give them a chance to fire at you; take 'em down."

Boba popped off a few shots at the nearest enemy, who fell in the holographic equivalent of death, before turning his attention to the three wookiees which were closing in around him.  Boba cursed softly in Huttese, hoping Jango wouldn't hear him, and opted for his jetpack, sending himself hurtling into the florescent light-blurred sky.  As he rose, he rained fire down on his attackers, having the satisfaction of seeing one fall.  Wookiees were tough creatures, and Jango had been inserting them in the scenarios more and more lately, much to Boba's irritation.

Boba deactivated the jetpack as he brushed by the wall of the building, allowing the electra-magneto strips on the sides of his armor to grip the wall's surface and hold him there.  The two remaining wookiees roared in their strange language, raising their crossbows to fire.  Boba waited until the last possible moment, then withdrew power from the magnetic strips, allowing himself to fall back to the landing pad, just steps from the wookiees.  He sprawled himself out on the wet deck, making the wookiees think he was dead or injured, then just as they approached, he sent two blaster bolts sizzling upward, rolling out of the way just before a wookiee body tumbled down with a groan.

Boba continued the roll until he was back on his feet, his gloved hands fumbling with the zipline on his gauntlet.  He sighted at the third and final wookiee's head, and sent the line whipping around its neck.  The line not only encircled the creature's neck, but attached itself to the wall just over the wookiee's right shoulder.  With a roar of rage, it turned, dropping its crossbow as it tried to tear the line from its neck.  Boba pressed the retract button, and the line grew taught.  As Boba began to slip towards the wookiee, he counteracted the slide and dropped to the deck, causing more friction between his body and the landing pad.  As an added measure, he .  Now secure, he anchored the zipline to the ground, it now sufficiently taught to hold the wookiee firmly.  He approached the enormous alien leveling his blaster at it.  The alien struggled one last time, then slumped, an already cauterized wound straight through its chest.

No more adversaries appeared.  Jango disabled the trainer viewscreen, and Boba pulled it off once again.  The boy turned around and jogged back to his father, his actions having taken him across the landing platform.  "How'd I do?"

Jango smiled.  Wookiees were difficult opponents.  Opponents whom Jango himself had once feared.  Worthy opponents.  "You did all right, Son," he roughly patted Boba's shoulder, "now go inside change.  I need to check something on the ship.  'Be right in."

Boba nodded and wiped a soaked strand of hair out of his eyes.  The rain, if it was even possible, was coming down even harder now.  As he headed back to the brightly-lit halls of Tipoca City, he tried not to voice how much his small body hurt.  Jango didn't put up with whining, and Boba didn't want to disappoint him.  The training was hard, though.  Wookiees, even wookiees on the easy setting like those in the scenario, were daunting merchandise.  How would he ever be as good as Jango?

The boy stumbled slowly down the hallway, leaving a set of wet footprints glistening on the polished floor.  Even as he walked, maintenance droids scurried to mop up after him, but he was used to them and did not notice.  When he reached the house he leaned on the door mechanism, deactivated the alarm, and ambled inside.

The apartment was not fancy at all.  With only a few rooms, it was almost similar to their bunkroom on the Slave I.  Boba showered and dressed in a dry tunic—blue, like almost all of his clothes—and wandered out into the tiny living room to crouch in the window seat with a book Zam had given him.  She had taught him to read, and he had learned quickly.  He'd had to.  Zam's visits were infrequent, and Jango disapproved of wasting time reading books.  Reading was essential, Jango has said repeatedly, but not for entertainment purposes.

Jango took longer than Boba had expected, and after he had finished a few chapters, the boy fixed himself a sandwich.  Then he sat in the window seat, the book forgotten, and stared at the ship that was occupying the landing platform: Slave I.  Someday it would be his, Jango had said.  _Well_, Boba thought, _not for a while anyway_.  He was only six.


	4. Jango's Thoughts

Even after Slave I came to a rest on the familiar rainy landing platform in Tipoca City, Jango stayed in his seat in the cockpit. He dreaded going in to Boba. How would he explain Zam's death to the little boy? How could he explain his reasons for shooting that dart? Boba was still so young, his heart still trusting, loving. Boba had looked up to Zam; she had been the closest he had had for a mother. And his father, Jango, had killed her.  
  
Jango glanced out the viewport, and saw Boba standing at the door to the building. The ten-year-old's face searched the drenched landing platform for Jango and Zam's emerging forms. But he'll only see me, Jango thought.  
  
Jango knew he was late. The jedi would be confounded by the absence of Kaminoan records, and Jango had taken advantage of that freedom to stop at his favorite space stop on the outer rim, The Last Chance. In a favorite cantina there, he had downed a glass of Dekenbrian Ale, and, on miserable impulse, a shot of Tatooine Whiskey. "To her spirit," he'd murmured, "to Zam."  
  
As he had waited for the alcohol to wear off, he had retreated to one of the few seedy hotel rooms, where he could think in peace. Sitting on the bed, his back to the wall, he had gone over and over what had happened in lower level Coruscant in his head. Was there any way he could have prevented it? The Jedi, after drawing the information out of her, would have killed her for sure. She had already been wounded, perhaps mortally. Jedi are not to be trusted, Jango had resolved, they are to be eliminated. Oh, how he wished he could do a Jedi capture asassination soon. It would be a joy.  
  
It hadn't been his fault, then. Zam had known that her life came second to the hunt. It was her way. Jango knew she would never have told anyone about him, but Jedi, tricky beings as they were, would have pulled the information from her unwilling Clawdite lips. Zam would have rather died that betray him. Jango had fulfilled her wish.  
  
But how to explain to Boba? Jango looked again at the door, then unfastened his safety harness. He was just a simple man, trying to eke out a living among the stars. He would tell the boy one way or another. 


End file.
